A CO-PUBLISHING VENTURE

Stories & Lies

Stories & Lies is the latest poetry title from Blue Door Press. A trio of poets ask – how can we ever get our full family story when some people stray, some stay put, some go to any lengths to hide their past and others invent? Do we need to go back in order to look forward?

In Stories & Lies these very different poets – Pamela Johnson, Jennifer Grigg and Jane Kirwan – create the stories that need to be told in order to explore ideas of belonging and leaving, exile and expatriation, family and self. In poems that range from the surreal to the conversational we glimpse relationships across generations, moving from Ireland to the north of England to New England via the Midwest and Eastern Europe.

From the most intimate poems to the expansive, these portraits reveal the universal in the personal, the extraordinary in these ‘ordinary’ families.

Critical comments

This is a generous, big-hearted anthology, showcasing three poets with different styles and stories … these poets take us around the world, introduce us to characters whose narratives are personal yet share a common thread with the reader. The poems are vital and genuine. Tamar Yoseloff

Three poets, with an abundance of talent, explore, shift and travel widely in their writing … These highly accomplished poets are generous, sympathetic, humorous, knowing and audacious. They have a feel for history in their bones.Julian Stannard